“You never miss your water till the well runs dry.”
We who live here in an area that has a storm season each year can appreciate that old adage because on occasion we have lost power and or lost water because of a storm and in that situation who hasn’t automatically tried to flip a switch or turn on a faucet when we know full well there’s nothing there. In those situations we realize how we take for granted something common to us anytime day or night.
In moments like that we may think about where that water or power comes from, the history of its progress and improvement over time and how it has blessed our lives. And amidst grumbling about the inconvenience of it all we have the assurance that we’ll get it all back in a relatively short time and life will return to its former comfortableness and convenience.
Sometimes that’s the way we are with people, family members and others less close. There they are on a regular basis and our interactions are immediate and have to do with tasks at hand so our knowledge of them is superficial in a sense, even though, I think, there are opportunities to know more through even casual conversation and interaction that leaves the door open for augmented insights, if you will. It’s just a matter of making up our minds to be curious about people and in a friendly way get to know them better. It means making an effort to gradually become more personal…carefully, respectfully, genuinely. In many cases it may mean investing just a little more time and attention than the moment might require.
So because life is what it is, these people we know or know of, pass out of our lives and we realized that person is no longer there and is not going to come back. In the aftermath we find things out we never knew and we wish we had. We are curious about things we could have found out if we had taken the time to inquire, but now may never know.
There is a certain richness to be had in our own lives through relationship with others that goes beyond their usefulness to us in circumstances. Their past, their qualities whatever they might be, rub off in our contact with them and have an influence on us. In a way I think God’s goal for us was not just to do the work of life but that that work be a means for we, His children, to be a blessing to one another, reap benefit through obedience to His council, His command, to love one another. And in so doing we glorify Him.
So we love You Father.
May that love we have for You move You to make of us people who look to know one another beyond the demands of circumstance with a genuine heart of friendliness and appreciation.
May we see the blessing in the call to not forsake the gathering of ourselves together, in Your desire that we take an interest in and care for one another as we would ourselves.
We pray to reap the blessing of knowing the person and character and accomplishments of our neighbor.
Thank You Father for our neighbors, our fellow human beings all of whom You created and gifted and who You placed here along with us.
May we be just as interested in them and value them as You do.
In Yeshua’s name we pray,
Amen.
May God’s love be in us all.
Elder.
